The possibility that industrial nations will become "global villages" or comprise a "wired world" with a common information system appears possible in light of technology, but there are five major reasons why such an information society will not occur for some decades, particularly in the United States. The reasons are as follows: (1) there is no communication policy at the national level, (2) media ownership is diverse, (3) most innovative communication technology is beyond the financial reach of the majority of families, (4) there is a lack of public interest in technology beyond cable television and video recording systems, and (5) sophisticated information systems are very costly to build for media corporations. Rather than achieving a global village, societies will be inundated with a wide assortment of information systems. This assortment will, in effect, stratify societies into ten levels of information systems, creating information inequity parallel to economic levels. These ten levels range from the telephone, radio, television, and newspaper level (into which the majority of families fall) through cable television and video recording systems, to the most sophisticated and costly system that includes a personal computer and computer-conference hook-up to outside data banks. (HTH)